Taking My Language With Me

Since I’m not much in a blogging mood tonight, I figured I’d give everyone a little taste of the kind of work that I do in school. I particularly liked this Think Piece (#9) I did for Dr. Roozen, and since I finished my last final exam this semester in his class about 10 hours ago, I thought I might post something in honor of him or something. Well, maybe not in honor, but I’ll give you this little piece of writing to read anyway. So, without further ado, or whatever:

Taking My Language With Me
Written April 20, 2006

I grew up in the Deep South in a small town called Highland Home, Alabama. I’ve lived on dirt roads at times in my life. I know how to use the words “ain’t,” “ya’ll,” and “yonder” correctly, and I still use them today. In addition, I’m an English major.

The first time I experienced a kind of oppression to my own language, or at least the first time I gave it any notice, was when I was doing yard work for this older lady in Auburn. I threw out the word “ain’t” in a conversation we were having while cleaning her lawn chairs. She stopped me mid-sentence and told me I should be ashamed of myself for talking like that, especially since I am an English major. She said she had a friend from England who visited a week earlier that would be appalled at my abuse of the language. There I was, 21 years old, and a 65-year-old woman was teaching me how to talk.

I gave her opinion a lot of thought over the next few days, wondering if I needed to focus on how I spoke. Since I am an English major, shouldn’t I at least speak correctly? I finally decided my speech is part of who I am, part of my experiences, part of where I came from. Bell hooks mentions, “We are transformed, individually, collectively, as we make radical creative space which affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which gives us a new location from which to articulate our sense of the world” (242). Because my speech is part of me, to undo it would be to strip that part away. It would strip away where I grew up, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had. I would still like to say, “Me and Johnny went to the store,” as opposed to “Johnny and I.” I would still like to use “ain’t,” “ya’ll,” and “yonder” because of who I am. If I am to be a writer, one thing I do aspire to be in life, then I must carry my language with me. It is the voice of those places, people, and experiences, and that is what I will take with me.

And now I will do a spelling and grammar check to make sure this paper is not too out of line with the use of the English language because I wouldn’t want to start a sentence with “and” or use too many contractions. I’ve already added “ain’t” to my Microsoft Word dictionary this morning. I am resisting oppression.

I really enjoyed reading that. I don’t say ain’t most likely because my father gave many grammar lections and such when we were growing up. But after moving to the south when I was 11 I do say ya’ll to this day. You should share this piece with your professor if you haven’t already. I’m betting he’d enjoy it and be touched you thought enough to share it. Thanks for the visit this morning.

We have to do these things called Think Pieces for Dr. Roozen during the semester. They’re usually about a half page to a page in length on whatever we had to read for that day. I just particularly liked doing this one. My professor said he enjoyed reading it also.

Les, these kinds of papers are the funnest ones to write if you ask me. They’re just little subjective pieces on what we thought about the reading. They let us openly explore. This is one of my favorite kinds of writing assignments.

sweetie i really enjoyed reading this post.
i loved your think piece. i also love using ‘me and ****’ and loads of other ‘vernacular’ as we’d say in blighty! but i am also very glad that i learnt to do things ‘correctly’ so that now i can abuse the rules knowingly. i love that your prof. is cool enough to make you think and question and help you to gain your own confidence. i’d quite like to be set papers like that again! being forced to think is always good! and (see how i did that!) though i’m here via michele tonight i think i may stop by again to see how much you learn from the old biddy and her English friend! we don’t only use aint but innit is substituted for a full stop whenever possible* know wot i mean? biddy would be shocked.

Well, I don’t work for the lady anymore, but not because of this incident. So, she won’t be correcting my language anytime soon. This happened last fall. I just so happened to have the opportunity to write about for class.

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